Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Don't Taze Me, Sonny

When a deputy can't control a 72 year old woman without resorting to his Tazer, that deputy needs to find a new job. What was dude afraid of - breaking a nail? Granny hitting him with her purse? Maybe he could get a job as a towel boy, or something in ticket sales. Anything other than behind the wheel of a cop car and the trigger of a gun.

Don't they train these officers anymore? Or is the need for police officers so much larger than the available pool of candidates that they have to hire just about anybody, even those incapable of learning basic human relations skills like how to defuse a situation without resorting to violence?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeff, did you watch video? The officer told her numerous times to calm down or she would be tazed. She was unruly and cussed at him and told him to take her to jail. How many times does he have to tell her? He was calm and professional. She was unruly and almost walked into traffic. Yes she is 72 year old woman, but a 88 year old white dude just shot a bunch of people in washington...

Lee

Jeff Crook said...

My point is, was he such a puss that he was incapable of restraining a 72 year old woman without putting 50,000 volts through her body? If so, he doesn't need to be a cop.

The Tazer was designed to be used in place of a gun. To use a Tazer implies that you would otherwise have been forced to use a gun. That is not how the Tazer was used in this case. It was used to enforce compliance. In other words, it's a cop-out. The cop has no right to even warn someone that if they don't comply they will be tazed. Unruliness, even cursing at cops, is not illegal.

The Tazer is overused by undertrained cops to do that which, before the Tazer was invented, cops were trained to handle in other ways.

Anonymous said...

I agree the tazer might have looked excessive to a point, but the old lady needed to cooperate with the officer. He was just doing his job. I am not defending cops who go all rodney king. I see too many bad ones on the streets of mempho. But, when a cop tells you to do something... just do it. Let the judge decide who is right or wrong.

In this case, the cop pulls her over on a busy highway. She is unruly and yes cussing is not illegal but she is highly agitated. What would have happened if she bumped the officer and he was killed in traffic, or if he tried to grab her and she runs out into traffic and gets killed. The officer would be blamed.


I beleive police departments went to the tazer from the baton, because too many lawyers(ask your wife about lawsuits) have filed too many excessive and yes sometimes frivolous lawsuits.

It would be one thing if she was calm and did everything he asked her to do and the cops came and beat or tazed them.... I understand your point, its just i had just finished looking at that vid and then saw your take. I deal with too many folks that think there are no consequences to ones actions.


Lee

talk to ya later....